


a promise

by andibeth82



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Banter, F/M, Male-Female Friendship, Pre-Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the aliens attack New York, when Tony Stark flies into the wormhole, when Fury more or less lays down the law with the Council, Melinda May is blissfully unaware.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a promise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oparu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/gifts).



> Thanks to [bobsessive](http://bobsessive.tumblr.com) for last minute beta. Slight liberties taken with the general AoS timeline in general, particularly the time period post Avengers and pre series. 
> 
> [The recipient specified a Melinda May centric fic, and although this ended up involving one other character due to the way the story evolved, I hope it's still enjoyable!]

**May 2012**

 

When the aliens attack New York, when Tony Stark flies into the wormhole, when Fury more or less lays down the law with the Council, Melinda May is blissfully unaware. Her cell phone is off, her comm units are stored in her purse, and her gun is tucked into a hidden pocket in the back of her suitcase. She is, for all purposes, cut off from the world – even misses the morning paper that lands on the ground outside her bungalow in South Africa, large color images of burning buildings and green monsters and orange repulsor rays blatant amongst the black and white landscape of the front page.

When she finally does reconnect, her phone first displaying the email that starts with “we regret to inform you…” and the rest coming to her attention in a short, officially worded declaration, she decides that she’s glad fate intervened. Probably best not to be around after all that; unlike other major disasters, this one hit a little too close to home. Not really because of Stark or Banner or Rogers – they were names more than emotions, faces more closely associated with stories and office chatter. Barton and Romanov were a bit different: she had been present during many of their training sessions, had even passed a few words between the two and helped out in the one instance that they actually needed an extraction, long before Strike Team Delta became something of a legend. And Phil…well…it’s not like she cared for Phil in _that_ way. Acquaintances, sure. Friends, certainly. Frankly, it was more that he was one of the first people to show her real respect when she began to climb the ranks at S.H.I.E.L.D., and the sentiment hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Respect. That was all, and nothing more.

She cuts her vacation short, returns under the guise of needing to help out with cleanup and cover-up, careful to avoid any questions and sympathetic looks. Five weeks later, she’s re-heating leftovers in the kitchen when the phone rings, and it takes half a second for her fingers to tangle around the cord, half a second more for Hill’s clipped voice to transmit over the line.

“It’s Coulson. He’s back. From Tahiti.”

She drops the phone, and doesn’t remember anything that comes after.

 

**September 2013**

“Please tell me this some sort of joke.” Melinda picks up the folder with two fingers, as if holding it more securely will be the cause of some infectious disease. She lets her face drop into a frown as her eyes scan the creased papers.

“A joke from me would be far more jovial, May.”

“Don’t doubt I’m glad to see you alive,” she responds dryly, dropping the file on the table. “But there are other welcome back gifts I would’ve preferred. This…Skye. She’s a hacker, Coulson. A distracted little girl who just wants to get her hands on the next big thing, probably one of those tweens who has a Captain America poster on her wall.”

“I think she’s more of a Thor girl, actually,” Coulson offers with a smile. “And by the way, she lives in a car, so the posters…let’s just say they’re more like those window decals from Target.”

Melinda stares at him for a long moment before barking out a laugh and throwing her hands across her chest. “You’re seriously considering this.”

“I am.”

“Can I at least ask why?”

Coulson looks slightly uncomfortable as he plays with the fingers of his right hand. “I’m thinking of re-building my team. Taking things in a different direction - with Director Fury’s permission, of course.” He hesitates, taking a longer breath before continuing.

“I saw things, when I was with The Avengers. I saw what could happen when you worked together…and what could happen when you didn’t.” As if on cue, one hand reaches towards the left side of his chest, an almost unconscious movement that she tries not to acknowledge. “They had a separate code,” he continues. “But learning about themselves made them better people, and I think we can do that here, if we play our cards right. I’d like to try.”

Melinda’s eyes rise disdainfully, though there’s a hint of a smile tracing its way across her lips. “You and I have been in the business a long time, Coulson. I haven’t seen you take a leap of faith like this since Romanov.”

He shrugs, clearly becoming more than a little uncomfortable with the pushback, and shoves a hand into the pants pocket of his suit. “I can’t explain it. It’s Tahiti, May. It…changes you.”

Melinda’s thin, barely-there smile falters as she rises, placing a hand on his shoulder and letting her fingers tighten around the bone.

“Yes.” She swallows and moves her gaze to the wall, until she’s hardened it against a vast expanse of nothing. “I’m sure it does.”

 

***

 

Melinda May’s first official interaction with Coulson’s team is over a welcome breakfast, though after the whole situation with Peterson and the fact that they’ve already been well acquainted with each other, the term “welcome” seems a bit silly. Somewhere in between Skye’s incessant questioning of whether or not Tony Stark was actually as handsome as the papers made him out to be and FitzSimmons’ arguing about Chitauri magic and if it could be isolated for the purposes of real world usage, she manages to slip out the side door and sequester herself in the cockpit of the plane. It’s solitude she craves more than anything else, a sense of quiet she hasn’t been able to find since coming back into the folds of S.H.I.E.L.D., and she lets out a breath as the door closes, enveloping her into a blanket of blissful calm.

“Not hungry?”

_Fuck._

“I don’t need to eat,” she replies without turning around. She knows he won’t leave – at least, not right away - but she also knows it doesn’t mean she has to give herself up emotionally, nor does he expect her to.

“This is my cockpit.”

“Yes, it would seem so.” Coulson’s voice drops slightly. “Look, I don’t want to overstep my bounds -”

“You just did,” Melinda interrupts coldly, but there’s a hint of warmth coating the biting tone of her words. She finally turns, raising an eyebrow. “Luckily, I like you, so I won’t throw you through the window without a parachute. What do you want, Coulson?”

“A promise.”

“A promise.” She arches an eyebrow. “What is this? Some sort of cult?”

“Well, Skye certainly seems to think so.” He gives a small smile, and despite the fact that the emotion is so far from what she feels in her current mental state, she finds that she can’t help but relax in his presence.

“I need to know you’re with us.”

Melinda feels the smile drop as quickly as it had started to appear. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t with you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She turns away again, taking a step forward and pressing her fingers into the wall before finding purchase around the seat of the cockpit.

“I had a desk job. You of all people know why I took that job, and you have no right trying to get me back in here.”

“I think you need to be back here.” Coulson leans back, doesn’t move closer but also doesn’t change his stance. “I saw what you did back there, how you saved my team.” He pauses. “You want to be in the field. You want to fight again, but you’re not going to do that unless someone forces you to.”

Melinda sighs in in the space of his words, and something in Coulson’s gaze softens.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Agent May.”

 _You’re wrong._ It’s what she wants to say, what she feels she should say, but as her eyes move over his form – this living, breathing form of Phil Coulson, who she had mourned and who was supposed to, for all intents and purposes, be dead – she instead finds her mouth forming a tight, straight line.

“I fly the plane, Coulson.”

“I know. You’re an excellent pilot.”

“I don’t get involved in ground action. I’m here for extraction only, which means you’re responsible for saving your own ass out there.”

“I get it.”

“And I don’t want anyone in your team snooping around my cockpit, or cornering me to ask what kind of cereal superheroes eat.”

Coulson’s lips quirk slightly, but he manages to keep his reaction neutral. “Deal.”

Melinda turns back to the controls, settling herself comfortably into the pilot seat as the door creaks open again behind her.

“By the way,” she adds casually, when she’s quite sure he’s almost out the door. “I checked out some footage of Skye’s car. I was right. She’s a Cap girl.”

There’s a silence that lasts just long enough for her to know the words haven’t gone unnoticed, and she trains her gaze on the open sky and the control panel and everything she knows like the back of her hand.

“Just fly the plane, May.”

The door slams shut behind her and when she’s absolutely sure no one else is looking, she lets herself smile.


End file.
